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boxerboy

Looks to me like a lot of doublespeak. Republicans will take Fed money but won't admit that the flow helps them stay afloat.

OH enjoys "revenue growth, including from expanded gambling" and hopes to increase the taxes on the extraction industry. I thought these practices were perfected by Democrats? No? They are Republican? I am confused. Let's see: take from the rich and give to the poor. And this is what passes for Republicanism? Remind me to switch parties.

Gooseman

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who opposed President Barack Obama's health care reform law, wants to take advantage of Obamacare funding to expand his state's Medicaid program to more poor people, he announced in his budget proposal Monday.

Kasich is now the fifth GOP governor to back the Medicaid expansion, joining Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and fellow GOP leaders in Nevada, New Mexico and North Dakota in agreeing to a key component of Obama's efforts to extend health coverage to as many as 17 million people through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program over a decade. Including Ohio, the chief executives of 20 states and the District of Columbia are now on board with the Medicaid expansion.

Gooseman

Generous federal funding for new Medicaid enrollees is likely the major motivating factor behind Kasich's decision to participate in the expansion, which the Supreme Court made optional for states when it upheld Obama's health care law last year. The federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs of the new beneficiaries from next year through 2016, after which the share will gradually decline until it reaches 90 percent in 2022 and future years.

"We are going to extend Medicaid for the working poor and for those who are jobless trying to find work," Kasich said at a news conference in Columbus Monday that was broadcast online. "It makes great sense for the state of Ohio because it will allow us to provide greater care with our own dollars."

Gooseman

pecifically, Kasich said the White House indicated it would consider proposals from Ohio that would put fewer people into Medicaid and more into private health insurance. The health care reform law seeks to extend Mediacid to anyone earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $15,282 for a single person this year. The expansion targets low-income adults who do not have disabilities or children living at home and who aren't eligible for Medicaid in most states today, no matter how little they earn.

Gooseman

Kasich credited the White House with encouraging him to go forward with the Medicaid expansion. Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Obama, vowed to consider giving Ohio the flexibility to enact changes to its Medicaid program during a telephone conversation on Jan. 30, Kasich said. "I want to thank Valerie Jarrett today for being willing to work with us," he said.